


Perchance To Dream

by straightforwardly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Assassins, Gen, Ghosts, Reprogrammed Identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2358812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/pseuds/straightforwardly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a strange mist sweeps over Braavos, a Faceless Arya encounters a mysterious— but familiar— figure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perchance To Dream

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cleaning up my harddrive, and I thought I'd start posting a few fics I have lying around. This one was written for this prompt at the [asoiafkinkmeme](http://asoiafkinkmeme.livejournal.com/15285.html?thread=9918901#t9918901):
>
>> Arya + Ghost!Ned: _She finally isn't all alone._  
> 
> 
> It turned out differently than I'd expected, but I'm not displeased with the result. 

She was Arry, she was Cat, she was Beth, she was Mercy, she was Lya.

She was No One, and she was Nothing. 

She slipped through the streets and alleys of Braavos, in the dance halls and the homes of the rich, in the pubs and the inns. She went everywhere, and everywhere she went, she listened. She listened, and she spread the coin of the Many-Faced God.

She was No One, and she knew nothing of wolves or winter. 

She was No One, and the kindly man smiled.

(But sometimes, when she curled up to sleep in her little room in the Temple of the Many-Faced God, chanting a silent litany of names, No One looked an awful lot like Arya Stark.)

* * *

That night, she left the gift for a man who had come from overseas. He chose a drab little inn with shadowed rooms for his sleep, and those shadowed rooms were the last he saw, when he fell asleep that night.

When she left the inn, she became Cat again, slippery little Cat dashing along the docks. The mist rolled out over the docks from the sea, but Cat knew every inch of every stone, and so she did not need to stop. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the mist take the form of a man— a man with a grim, stern face, looking at her with sad eyes.

Cat stumbled. When she looked again, the figure was gone.

When she returned to the House of Black and White, she was No One— and she was trembling. 

( _Stupid_ , she thought before she slept that night, _you're being as stupid as Sansa_ , and No One knew nobody named Sansa.)

* * *

The mist did not cede from the docks, and she did nothing. 

Arya Stark would have been impatient, Arya Stark would have shouted and demanded the kindly man tell her something, teach her something, let her _do_ something, but she was No One and she was Nothing and so she waited. 

On the third day of the mist, she went to the edge of the docks and looked out to the shadowed ships just beyond her vision. 

The next time she came to the temple, someone had requested the gift for another.

She was Samwise that night, a boy, and a newly-hired hand for one of the ships. He laughed and drank with the crew, a silly boy who thought himself half a man, and went with them onboard the ship that night to sleep. 

By the time morning began to rise, the gift had been given. She crept off the ship, and stood on the docks with her own face, watching the morning sun trickle weakly through the haze. 

The mist took shape besides her, and she did not move, not until the grim-faced man was looking at her again. He looked at her, and his eyes mourned.

When he lifted his hand, reaching for her shoulder, she turned and ran. 

When she returned, the kindly man looked closer at her and frowned, the first time she had seen him so do in many days.

"Who are you?" he asked her with searching eyes.

"No One," she said, the words coming easily to her tongue. "Nothing."

It was true. _The lone wolf dies_. Arya Stark had been a wolf, and Arya Stark had been alone, and Arya Stark was dead. 

The kindly man watched her for a moment longer, then nodded. 

(That night, she dreamed of a long-faced man smiling, though his face was not suited for it, and a woman with flames for hair standing by his side. She repeated Queen Cersei's name twice.)

* * *

Still the mist did not fade, and the people began to whisper. She caught those whispers, and brought them back to the temple, watching as the kindly man sorted through and discarded nearly all, until finally came the day when he sent her away to hunt further. 

She changed her face as she left the temple, the muscles sliding in effortless ease. It was a girl's face, a face without a name. 

She slipped through the streets, the people around her more shadow than flesh through the haze. Their whispers were hushed, but still they spoke. They spoke, and she listened and she remembered their words long after the air had ceased to hold them. 

When the mist began to coalesce into the body of a man, she did not flinch. She stared up at him with hard eyes, at the wispy, unsubstantial planes of his face.

Her face was not her own and yet, he seemed to know who she was. 

He reached his hand out to her again, and this time she did not run. She was No One, and she was Nothing; there was nothing that she needed to fear. 

His hand settled softly on her shoulder, and though it was made of mist, she could feel the weight of it still. When she looked up into his eyes, they were sorrowful, but warm. 

She trembled, and was angry with herself, and she did not know why. 

When she left, he followed, and did not fade. 

(That night, when she curled up in a warm corner of an alley, the figure raised from the mist sat besides her. And when she slept, she did not look so much like No One, as she did an impossibly young, lonely girl.)

* * *

She did not return to the House of Black and White for some time. She walked the streets and inns and listened to the whispers. 

The misty figure never left her side. He followed her as she moved, grave and melancholy, and never said a word. 

At times, he seemed more real than the flesh-and-blood people who traveled the streets alongside her, the mist obscuring them until they were nothing more than dark shapes. No one ever turned to look at him, not even when she ducked inside to the dim light of the ale houses. Gradually, she began to realize that he was hers, and hers alone. 

Finally, when enough days had passed and the whispers filled her mind, she returned.

When she stepped through the entrance the temple, the figure did not follow. And when she turned to see where he had gone, he had already vanished. 

(When she went to sleep, back in her little room again, she thought one more name, a name that did not belong on her list. She tossed and turned that night, restless in her sleep; in her dreams, wolves howled.)

* * *

The next time she left the temple, he came to her almost instantly, forming from the mist as soon as the entrance closed. 

She did not pause, but continued walking. He followed as he had before, silent and watchful. 

The mist had lessened, though it still hung over the streets of Braavos. When she looked at him, the figure seemed more solid now than he had before. 

She knew that face. 

She walked far from the temple, beyond the docks and deeper into the heart of the city, before she stopped. She stopped, and turned around, looking up at the figure. Her face was her own.

She was trembling again, she realized. _Stupid_. 

Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to kick him. It. 

"Why are you following me?" she demanded, her voice harsh and bitter; her eyes were hard. The anger came easily to her, like a familiar, old friend. She could not stop shaking. "Why are you here?"

The figure did not reply, did not react at all. She snarled. 

Then, ever-so gently, he lifted his arm, and let his hand settle on the top of her head. She did not flinch. 

His hand was neither warm nor cold; the weight of it was a comfortable burden. Her chest ached.

She opened her mouth to speak again, but the word caught, choking, in her throat. Her eyes shuttered, blinking against the sudden, unheeded tears. 

When she returned to the House of Black and White, she had not completed her task. The kindly man's eyes turned stern, disappointed. 

"Who are you?" he asked again.

"Nothing," she answered, and her eyes were empty.

He said little else to her; in the morning, she knew, there would be more.

(That night, she did not sleep. She laid awake, and her thoughts were a heavy burden.)

* * *

When dawn rose, the sun's light peaking through the fading mist, she was no longer within the temple. She kneeled just outside of it, her fingers scrambling at the stone. 

The figure stood besides her. He showed no sign of fading, though the mist around him continued to lessen into nothing as the sun slowly inched over the horizon. 

Finally, she managed to pull away the stone, and drew up the long, thin sword hidden beneath. She stood, the sword balancing in her hand, and looked up at the figure besides her.

He smiled down at her, and his eyes were warm and fond.

She turned, and together they began to make their way towards the docks. Towards the ships. 

Towards _home_.

( _The pack survives_. Arya Stark wasn't alone anymore.)


End file.
